Fishing in Scotland. is it as bad as Fred protrays?

[Wildfisher]

For the record I have never said fishing in Scotland is bad - that's just Highlander mischief making. 

What I have said is it's mediocre  by international standards and sorry if that upsets anyone, but it is!   

It was not always so. As a nation we have taken some of the best salmon fishing in the world and certainly the best sea trout fishing and one way or another  we have presided  over its trashing. We have even screwed up the sea fishing.

Pike fishing seems to be the new growth sport. I blame global warming.  :lol:

[SoldierPmr]

For the record I have never said fishing in Scotland is bad - that's just Highlander mischief making. 

What I have said is it's mediocre  by international standards and sorry if that upsets anyone, but it is!   

It was not always so. As a nation we have taken some of the best salmon fishing in the world and certainly the best sea trout fishing and one way or another  we have presided  over its trashing. We have even screwed up the sea fishing.

Pike fishing seems to be the new growth sport. I blame global warming.  :lol:

Only because Alan has been filling bandie lochs with pike so he told me any ways  :lol:

[Wildfisher]

If wild fish forums from every continent joined up to compare i feel confident we could hold our own

Well of course you could just sit in front of your keyboard and read about it on forums,  but then you could also go and find out for yourself if it's true or not. 

If you don't go you can never really know.  :

[Mark]

Thats true tho most people cant take a month off work, ditch the family and find 3 and a half grand down the back of the sofa.
I suspect its something people can only afford to do where retired or very lucky.

[Wildfisher]

Yeah, for sure not everyone can do it, I would not have managed it when I was younger either and especially when I was in permanent wage slavery.  Time is a big problem  for most people. Money is also an issue of course, but my last trip  was done for the price of 20 fags a day for a year.

[highlander2504]

One of my first posts on this forum (always worth a cast) sums it up for me. Beautiful 3lb trout from a puddle. You just never know what lies in the peat stained water. Upon travelling to NZ or other destinations , you go with a certain level of expectation of what's in store.

[Wildfisher]

I'm sure its great, but i have other things i'd do if i were to jump on a plane, i have more family in Tasmania than here now and a mate in New Zealand, but if i was going to go to the trouble i'm afraid i'd be painting in Venice.

I can understand that. They say travel broadens the mind and it does. I loved all the cultural stuff in Europe, the ancient  Greek and roman artifacts in the Med and Aegean, the long treks through the Himalayas and such stuff.  I could not have imagined what these places were really like. Without going it would have been impossible.  The fishing is the same and it's not just about catching big fish. Time and work restrictions are major problems for most people though. 

[sinbad]

I will be abroad this year and its something I really enjoy. For fishing wise I'm most looking forward to camp/fishing special places in Scotland that I go to tho.
Its where I feel part of the land. Can be a grouchy bugger but I light up cresting a ridge and seeing a hill loch or a good camp with views which for me are just the best.
Yes there are bigger mountains, more remote camps at the end of a plane , they're great but I don't feel better there than places under a hundred miles from my door.

[east wind]

It's hard to really compare Scotland with top destinations like NZ or other places with different climates. I've always wanted to try that area of Argentina (?) where Paul Young chases big trout with huge bushy dries in what looks like ditches. I would love to fish in NZ, always have done, but my personal circumstances prevent this. I still harbour hopes that I might get over in the next five to ten years or so, however I wonder if I'll be fit enough by then.

If we compare Scotland with European fishing destinations it still lags behind some places but I would not say it was mediocre. All in all with costs, choice and species I think it ranks not too badly 

[Lochan_load]

I think our view of fishing abroad can be skewed a fair bit by glossy magazine adds, glossy youtube etc and I reckon people abroad probably view our rivers and lochs favourably for similar reasons. It's not hard to make somewhere look desirable, some beautiful scenery, some slo-mo and a delighted fisherman holding a fat trout and the response of most fishers is ' id love to go there' 
Scotland isn't the best in the world but we have some good fishing and some great fishing and loads of ok fishing and in terms of other countries we're probably pretty good. We've certainly got plenty to explore.

The most interesting point I've seen in this thread is the one about fishing pressure, how would the don or upper Annan compare to the NZ rivers without the daily pressure they face?
I was in Iceland last year (unfortunately not fishing) and was at thingevallir national park, amazing lake, big trout and char in large numbers and costs next to nothing to fish. How many fishers did I see? Zero, not one. Somewhere like that here would be fished to bare bones here and called mediocre